


The Last Vessel

by schrodingers__cat



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Oh Dear, Speculation, This Is Sad, Void shenanigans, a lot of vessels made it pretty far, and been a semi-family, and the ones in Nosk’s hideout, it has a, there’s the poor greenpath vessel, though, very minor body horror, which means quite a few survived, which means they had to have known each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 20:02:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20031544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schrodingers__cat/pseuds/schrodingers__cat
Summary: Hollow just wanted to live.Ghost refuses to die.





	The Last Vessel

**Author's Note:**

> Broken Vessel: Crooked  
Greenpath Vessel: Poke  
Ghost and Hollow are themselves, and everyone else is an OC. 
> 
> _Bury my sisters, two by two_

The last clutch hatches.

Of course, Crooked hadn’t known it was the last one. If they had, they would have done something more. 

Instead, the new siblings were treated just the same as the last clutch.

Crooked, named for the way their unbalanced horns forced them to constantly lean to the right, accompanied (as always) by Sticks, meets them as they hatch. 

The hollowest, the lucky ones born with the least presence of mind, rush right to the climb. The falling siblings are a near-constant now, as all of them get more and more desperate. 

The ones that reach the top are all found to have some flaw, some imperfection. Too compassionate. Too angry. Too determined. Not determined enough. 

One by one, they are all thrown back off the edge. One by one, their shades rise and are overcome by Void-madness.

(Crooked and Sticks used to try and save them. Used to try and catch their falling siblings, try and make peace with their shades. It was a lesson in futility.)

The smart ones, they stay below (at least for a while). The smart ones see they can never fulfill their Not-Father’s desires. 

Crooked and Sticks would teach the smart ones as best as they could. To hide from sibling-shades gone mad from the Void consuming their un-hollow minds. To use the Void to communicate, as best as they were able. To climb the walls of the caverns. To survive.

There are only two little siblings that remain, after the last clutch hatches. One stands, proud and strong, with two long, serrated horns. The other is smaller, and skitters behind the other, shadowing them.  
(Not unlike Sticks would shadow Crooked, back when they were newly hatched.)

-Come,- Crooked gestures. 

-Home is that way,- Sticks points to a small cavern a few lengths up the ridged walls. Crooked and Sticks had set up a living space of sorts there, for themselves and any siblings that needed it. -Me, Sticks! Them, Crooked.-

-Me?- The taller sibling cocks their head. 

-We will find out,- Crooked shrugs. -Name will come.-

The taller sibling is a natural at climbing, it seems, and helps the smaller one up to the cavern. 

-So many falling,- the taller says.

-Many,- Crooked agrees. -But many still here.-

-Not enough,- they argue. -Many are falling. Too many falling. Too many shades.-

Crooked places a hand on their sibling’s shoulder. They shrug it off. 

-I will not be a shade,- they say. 

———

Crooked and Sticks try to introduce the newly-hatched pair to the rest of their siblings. But the taller one is distant and cold, really only giving its smaller shadow the time of day. 

Blade and Swirl, a warrior pair, capture the taller’s interest for a moment. They listen to Blade tell of the weapon they’d made out of creeper shell to fend off mad sibling-shades, how they’d received their name.  
(Too angry. That had been Blade’s fault. Swirl, named for their horns, had been too sharp, too intelligent. Blade had survived the fall. Swirl hadn’t even attempted it.)

Path, too, captures the taller sibling’s attention. Path, idealistic and empathic (their failures), has been trying to map a safe way out of their Abyss for a long, long time. The half-finished map is carved into the walls, and the taller siblings spends a long time staring at it. The smaller is entertained by Path’s emphatic gesturing as they tell of the harrowing experiences that let them chart this much. 

The smaller sibling is rather enchanted by Scrape, regal and strong, hardened by the loss of poor Clapper (Scrape’s own little shadow). Still, they give the smaller sibling a creeper-shell carving of a far-away land none of them have never seen, and the little one holds it close to their chest. 

———

The youngest pair seems to avoid names. Nothing fits quite right, and anything Crooked thinks will work is vehemently denied by one or the other. 

Sticks had wanted to call the smaller one Runt.  
-Smallest sibling!- they’d say. -Itty-bitty!-  
Crooked had refused that one, and Sticks is nothing if not loyal. (Another failing trait.) 

———

-I am going,- the taller says resolutely, one day. The smaller looks up at them in alarm. 

-Not hollow,- Crooked says.

-Doesn’t matter,- they reply. -How will Father know?-

-Not Father,- Crooked says stubbornly. -Not hollow.-

-Could be hollow,- they say. Crooked only sees the determination, the hope, and the pride that they’ve seen so far in their younger sibling, and Crooked knows that they will fail.

-Please?- The smaller one doesn’t use the Void to ‘speak’ much, preferring to listen and gesture. -Don’t want to go.-

-I will not be a shade,- the taller one says resolutely, and turns, and leaves.

-Sibling!-

Sticks reaches for their younger siblings, but they are quick, and the taller is stubborn and strong, and the smallest doesn’t want to be left alone. 

Siblings gather as their two youngest climb, either praying for their success, or resigned for their fall. 

Their Not-Father is waiting for them. The taller reaches the platform, and straightens, and very carefully stays blank, stays still. None of the others have tried to be anything but themselves. 

The Wyrm nods.

The discarded ones cannot gasp in alarm, but the Void is wild and frantic. 

The smallest reaches the edge.

Against their screaming need to be hollow, be nothing, be empty, the taller looks back. They—It—looks their little shadow in the eyes... and turns away.

The door slams closed with a final _clang._

The little one falls.

None of the siblings can bear to watch, so they all turn away, but they cannot close their ears to the sickening _crack._

They all see the littlest shade, and it whispers of anguish. 

-Sibling!- Someone calls. They all turn, and their youngest is standing with a cracked mask and a sharp stone in their hand, and they slash it across their shade’s chest. It dissolves.

If the Void could cheer, it would. 

———

The littlest sibling is named Ghost, because they refuse to die. 

———

Ghost, Crooked, and Sticks stare at the now-closed doorway. There are other paths out of their Abyss, of course, but the absence of their Not-Father and with him, hope of fulfillment, throbs oddly. 

-Would have called them Roach,- Crooked says distantly. -So desperate to live.-

-Call them Hollow?- Sticks bounces.

-Call them nothing,- Crooked responds flatly. 

-Call them Hollow,- Sticks says to Ghost. They seem to take some comfort from this, so Crooked says nothing. _Not hollow _still echos in their mind. _Not hollow._

———

-Scrape wants to leave,- Ghost says to Crooked, one day. Ghost has been quiet and distant since the loss of Hollow, but they still shadow the older siblings. -Path is almost done. Could all go?-

-Few make it past spiders,- Crooked warns. -None make it past rain-city. Only Poke still lives.-

Poke was of the second clutch, and had escaped early on. They’d been named for a natural curiosity (which had been what deemed them a failure), leading to a tendency to ‘poke their horns’ into things they shouldn’t. Poke’s shade had not yet joined the darkness, so they must still be alive. It was a little bit of hope, something they had precious little of.

-Scrape could do it,- Ghost argues. -Scrape strong.-

-Scrape strong,- Crooked agrees, -but kind.-

-Bad?- Ghost tilts their head.

-Above is not kind.- Crooked looks away, and up, towards the closed door to their home (their prison). -Kindness gets swallowed up. Above has only life or death. Neither are kind.-

———

A fight breaks out between a group of siblings. They are younger than Crooked, but perhaps Sticks’ age, and should know better. They have only each other in this encroaching darkness. 

Scrape breaks up the fight, but the animosity remains. 

A long-unnamed sibling earns the title ‘Scratch,’ so at least _something_ comes of it. 

———

Poke’s shade appears, whispering of sisters and the achingly beautiful color green, before the madness overtakes them.

-Is impossible!- a sibling cries. -We cannot survive Above!-

-We have each other,- a sibling called Zip says softly. -We can live. Somehow.- 

Zip was hatched with a cracked shell, and has been leaking void since birth. They don’t have much longer until their shade joins the rest. 

———

More and more siblings are succumbing to the Void. There are so few of them left. Their Abyss has always been a dark and cold tomb, but it was home.

Now it feels empty. Intricate carvings and messages scraped into the walls become memorials, epitaphs. Caverns and hidey-holes are abandoned. 

There are so many shades.

(_Too many, _Hollow’s voice echoes.) 

———

The Void takes away Path, who was always so hopeful. The map carved into the walls remains there still.

Crooked shivers, and gathers Sticks and Ghost closer to them. 

———

Blade and Swirl try their luck climbing, rather than letting the Void consume them. It is a long while before their shades appear, muttering of spiders and a horrible crawling beast, before the Void they so feared overtakes them. 

Crooked takes comfort from at least seeing them together, as they should be. 

———

The Void takes Scrape next. They’d thought they saw little Clapper, but it was only the cruelty of the darkness. 

———

Zip, one day, can’t take the cold, dark hopelessness any longer. They climb frantically, and desperately Sticks runs after them. Crooked tries to call for them, but no one dares to use the Void to speak anymore, and none of them were ever granted a voice. 

They watch Sticks fall. 

(Ghost grips Crooked’s hand in their own, but they do not respond.)

(Zip didn’t even get to fall, the last of their essence bleeding away on one of the platforms.)

———

Crooked, in their grief, makes a last-ditch attempt to breach the surface. They blindly, miraculously make it through. 

It is only once they’re exposed to the harsh air of the Above that they realize that the Void may have hunted them all, beckoned them—but it protected them, too. 

They leave no shade as they burn from the inside out. The Dream Goddess suffers no darkness. 

———

There is no one left, and Ghost finds their name fitting. They are only a reminder of the dead, discarded children of the Wyrm.

There is nothing left for them here.

They climb away from the map on the wall, from the shell carvings and creeper-blades. 

They follow in Crooked’s footsteps and blindly, deafly, distantly leave their Abyss behind. 

They do not try to find their Not-Father, where Hollow must be. They do not look for the beautiful rain-city, or the spider-tunnels that are home to a different kind of darkness. They do not search for the painfully beautiful green that Poke so loved. 

They leave everything behind. 

The wastelands beckon.

They let themself become nothing. Not even a ghost is to remain of the Wyrm’s poor, dead children.

———

-It hurts! It hurts!-

-I’m sorry, Father, I’m sorry!-

-I was a fool!-

-It burns, it’s so bright and it burns and it hurts!-

-Sibling!-

-Please!-

———

(Hollow just wanted to live.)

From the howling desert, a void all its own, there is an idea.

(Sibling in pain.)

A discarded, worthless thing follows it.

(Only have each other.)

It cannot die. 

(Shell carvings. Shell blades.)

It will not die.

(Green.)

———

...

———

(I will not be forgotten.)

**Author's Note:**

> _Bury my body, cover my shell_   
_What meaning in darkness? Yet here I remain_   
_I’ll wait here forever ‘til light blooms again_


End file.
